Execution - Multi Unit vs Multi Divisional Organisations

In their HBR article on The Multiunit Enterprise, David Garvin and Lynne Levesque reflect the following realities of the Multiunit organisation

Multiunit enterprises have become the norm in several industries, such as apparel, banking services, consumer electronics, food, general merchandise, hospitality, mail & package delivery and toys and sporting goods. Many of them are large organisations, with with international footprints (and) by our count they include 10 of the 25 largest employers in the world. 
(Yet) despite its prevalence, the multiunit enterprise has received little attention from academics and consultants over the years. Instead, they have associated the operation and management of large corporations with the multidivisional organisational structure. 

 Garvin and Levesque then reference their research which involved interviews and data collection from 12 large multi unit organisations, including Staples, Borders, CVS, Sovereign bank, Starbucks and Victorias Secret and which identified the challenges faced in a the multiunit environment, the first of which is that 

Multiunit enterprises find it hard to maintain consistency, because they are agglomerations of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of branches, service centres, hotels, restaurants or stores. To create one company out of so many units, managers must pay a great deal of attention to implementation. They must focus continually on aligning priorities, plans and practices across a highly dispersed field organisation. Since these companies promise customers the same brand experience everywhere, employees must adopt common operating practices, serve customers in similar ways and present a uniform image. While flawless execution is the goal, it's difficult to achieve. That's partly because it isn't easy to design the communication, control and deployment processes necessary to deliver consistently high levels of service. 

FranklinCovey's work also recognsies the challenge of 'flawless execution' within multiunit organisations, and developing a process that can support them in the communication, control and deployment of company wide priorities has been a key focus for our Execution practive in recent years. This short video provides an introduction to the approach we take.-

Move Your Middle - Executing Across Multiple Units